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Category Archives: Progress

This is a good reminder and I will be repeating it as often as necessary. I’ve got a lot going on this week and it would be easy to just let it all go. I am going to stay on track even though I’d much rather build a blanket fort and eat Nilla wafers.

So, I’ve got my plan and I’ve got some ideas for extra motivation. Wish me luck! I hope everyone has a good and successful week. See you Wednesday!

For the past month or so, the toilet in the master bathroom has been ‘running’ almost constantly. It started off quietly with only a little bit of water leaking into the bowl but over time it had become a pretty consistent stream. The constant bubbling noise was getting on my nerves but knowing how much water we were wasting was even worse.

The last several weeks I adjusted everything that could be adjusted, over and over and in any combination that was possible. Nothing seemed to help, last week while I was again trying to figure out what was going on I noticed bubbles coming up from the bottom of the water inlet valve. I looked around online for some information on how to fix a possible leak in the water inlet valve and found this tutorialfrom Let’s Fix It with Dan Jiles

I went to Home Depot today and bought a new Fluidmaster Universal Fill Valve for less than $8. I got some additional tips from Al at the HD near Gramma’s house. Once I got home, I followed the directions from the tutorial and had everything fixed in less than 20 minutes. It would have been less than 10 minutes but the nut on the old fill valve was being difficult. Sully had to come in to hold the top of the valve so I could muscle the nut in the tight space between the toilet and the sink cabinet.

It’s all fixed, no more bubbling sounds and more importantly, no more water being wasted. Yay!!!

Today I am taking my cue from another blog. I’ve mentioned before that I read the awesome blog Reinventing Fabulous written by the incredible authors, Jennifer Crusie, Lani Diane Rich and Anne Stuart (Krissie). Every Wednesday Lani posts a short entry of amazing insight . It’s WTF Wednesday, sometimes the F is for fabulous and sometimes it’s for the other F word. Everyone can talk about the fab or f*%$*d stuff in their lives.

“In improv, there’s a Yes, And Rule. Which means, that whenever someone proposes anything in the fiction, no matter how preposterous, your role is to accept that reality, and then add something new to it. No shuts things down; no stops all movement. Yes keeps things going, and And brings them somewhere new.”

This is so true. We’ve all had conversations with people that have said no even before we’ve finished speaking. Does anyone still feel like talking after that? Definitely not me, I’d have spun around and left the room at that point…well, most of the time anyway. Saying no effectively ends any attempt at conversation.

There are times, of course, when you want to shut down the conversation, like when Boo is telling me how hungry she is 3o minutes before dinnertime and that one cookie will really help. Uhmmm, no, you had lunch at a reasonable hour (and most likely a snack in the afternoon) you can wait the half hour until dinner is ready. Or with door to door salespeople. I have a note on the door that reads “No soliciting of any kind. Thank you.” I still get people ringing the doorbell and knocking. I don’t answer the door unless I know someone is stopping by but occasionally a salesperson will catch me heading to the mailbox or watering the flowers. I try to be polite but sometimes I just end up saying ‘no’ over and over until they leave.

The important thing is to say yes to keep the good things moving along. Sometimes you have to say yes by doing something new or scary. That isn’t always easy and it can take a lot of courage to take that first step. Sometimes you just have to hold your breath and close your eyes and just go. I am terrible about this but I try to think of what I would say to Boo or Sully or Faith. I would tell them to channel their inner warrior. Several months ago I had a similar conversation with my niece who was getting ready to start community college and was a bit nervous about driving on the freeway. She’s a great driver but her commute involved three different freeways and all during rush hour traffic. I told her to channel Princess Leia (Star Wars) or Zoe (Firefly) or (insert my niece’s suggestion here, I don’t remember). Do you think any of these strong women would be daunted by traffic? They had a job to do and they would overcome any obstacle to get where they needed to go. It worked, my niece wasn’t nervous and she got to and from school without any issues.

Hopefully, I will be able to channel my inner warrior and say yes. This year is full of opportunities and I can’t wait to see what I can do.

Phase 1: Day 18I had a pretty good walk, a little over 13 minutes and 0.7 miles. I started off too fast and ended up with the shin pain midway through my walk. At some point I am hoping that I find the right stride so I can just walk because this is making me crazy. I only did one set of my lower body workout because I am starting to feel not good. I really don’t want to be sick and I am doing anything and everything I can to get enough rest and take care of myself . Hopefully, I will be less susceptible to catching whatever is going around.Water = 44 ounces

Another week is done, Week 2 of Phase 1 went really well. I walked over 4 miles over seven days and six walks. I did my strength exercises Monday thru Saturday adding one new exercise to my routines. I am quite excited that today is my day off from my exercises. My upper body exercises were making me sore. I have until Tuesday to recover.

I am happy to say that I am now entering Week 3. It’s in this week where I find that I will either stick with something or I will inexplicably drop the ball. I don’t understand it myself but it’s happened more than once. I have started the EA Sports Active 3o Day Challenge several times. It really only has 20 days of exercises because there are set rest days within the challenge. I have gotten to exercise day 17 or 18 and then just stopped. The reasons are varied but mostly it came down to the fact that I simply lost my motivation. I’d miss a day and try to make it up and then I’d miss another day. That day would stretch into two and then suddenly I would be completely off track.

This time I am not going to let that happen. I have a plan and I am going to stick with it. I’ve stayed on track for 14 days and I only have 7 days left. That’s six days of walking, three days of upper body workouts and three days of lower body workouts. I can do that, right? When you break it down like that it doesn’t seem like that hard of a thing to do. It doesn’t seem like it to me. I can ignore the fact that after this week is over I fully intend to keep walking and doing my strength exercises. Right now, all that is important is that I reach my three week goal. That I make these activities habit, part of my daily life, as integral to my day as taking a shower or feeding the dog.

This is the point of transition, changing these activities from ideas I want to do and have to remind myself to do into activities that I just do because they need to be done. I don’t know why it’s so hard to convince myself to take care of me. I’ll spend time taking care of the bunnies or other critters in the house, I would think it’d be okay to spend equal time on me. I am ready to finish out this week and this first three week ‘phase’ strong.

Phase 1: Day 15I had a good walk. I’ve been getting pain in my shins midway through my walk. I did some online research and it seems that power walking with long strides can cause this. I am doing some extra stretching and my strength exercises to help my muscles adapt quicker. In the meantime, I am going to walk a more even pace and shoot for about 12 minutes and 0.7 miles. I did a pretty good job, I was on my last 300 yards or so when I felt my shins start to think about hurting. I shortened my stride and was able to finish my walk without it getting out of hand.No workout today but I did get an extended stretching session in before bedtime. I was really ready for a day off from the strength exercises.Water = 48 ounces –> I seriously need to be better about drinking enough water everyday. I am now to the point that I can tell the next day whether I had enough water the previous day. Who knew I’d ever become one of those people. 🙂

Apparently, this extra activity and less caffeine is causing me to need more sleep. I went to bed last night before midnight, it was the first time in probably more than two months. I got up around 7:30 to walk Sully to the door on his way out to the office. I fed the dog and let him outside and I went back to sleep. I didn’t wake up until nearly 9:30. So, I slept for nearly 9.5 hours give or take fifteen minutes or so. I am usually good with about 7 hours of sleep and occasionally sleeping in on a Saturday or Sunday.

In the last month though, I have cut down on my caffeine intake considerably and I have started to exercise daily. I get sleepy throughout the day and my guess is that my body is still adapting to the reduced amount of caffeine in my system. On a bad day I might have had over 150mg of caffeine a day, maybe more if I ate something that had caffeine in it like chocolate. That figure isn’t really all that high, a heavy intake of caffeine is thought to be at 500 to 600mg a day, that converts to about four to seven cups of coffee.** Coffee upsets my stomach, thinking about drinking that much coffee makes me nauseous. Anyhow, my caffeine intake, on a bad day I hovered around 150mg, most days I was probably closer to 100mg. Now, I am at about 50mg or less.

I’ve cut my caffeine by a lot, that’s a 50% – 66% decrease in about a month. It makes sense that I am feeling some side effects from it. I am at a pretty steady rate now of about 12 ounces a day. I bought some 12 ounce bottles that I can drink at home and not be tempted to go to a drive-thru and get a larger size. I’ve tried before to cut down on my soda intake, there was always something difficult going on that made it difficult to do it, to really get it done. This time I really think I’ve made it to the other side. I don’t feel like I need it or have to have it. Right now it just feels like a habit. I am looking forward to it being something to enjoy on occasion.

Phase 1: Day 6….

I took a shorter walk today. We were at Gramma’s and I walked a small loop in her neighborhood getting about 2/3 of my walk done. I added on some stepping when I got home to make up the difference.

Lower body workout went well. I am thinking about adding some exercises to my workout next week. I also remembered to stretch. Yay!

I have mentioned it here and have been talking with a friend about how it takes 21 days to make something a habit. It doesn’t matter what it is, good or bad, 21 days is pretty much the time for your brain to latch on to something and make it routine.

Every new year we hear a lot of talk about people either making resolutions or breaking resolutions. I’ve already mentioned that I am not making resolutions but that I have a plan. Well, part of my plan is to change how I do things. It’s not a big stretch to think that making good habits is the first step to real change.

I did a quick check of the calendar and discovered that there are 51 weeks left in 2013, divided by three that’s 17 good habit forming sections. I am going to make a list of 17 new and improved habits that I want to develop this year. This list will be a work in progress as the year goes on.

Tomorrow I will start the first three week time period. I will call them phases, mostly because that sounds groovy and kind of sci fi-ish. I will let you know how it goes.